


Posh Top

by cjmarlowe



Category: Fresh Meat (TV)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, M/M, Yuletide 2012, figuring it out, implied other relationships, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JP owned the house now, which meant he was under no obligation to wait to take a housemate vote before he offered Giles the top floor room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Posh Top

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betternovembers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betternovembers/gifts).



JP owned the house now, which meant he was under no obligation to wait to take a housemate vote before he offered Giles the top floor room. He was an adult capable of making his own choices, and this one was just about him and Giles. Of course, he also didn't have any actual proof there would be still _be_ more housemates than Howard and the pathologically absent Kingsley, but he carefully maintained all of their private spaces and assumed that no one was going to find anything better. After all, how could they? And they still didn't get a vote.

"Just you and me in the hot tub," said Giles, nodding his head and looking around the garden.

"And there'll be plenty more nights like this one," said JP. "Aren't you glad you decided to stay?"

"Mmmm," said Giles. It was nothing like what either of them had grown up with, obviously. But they were adults now and every adult needed to see how the other half lived for a little while. Especially from the vantage point of a hot tub.

"The boys wanted to meet for a pint tonight, but I told them sorry chaps, I'm having some time with my main man Giles. The Giles-ster." And he stretched his arms along the back of the hot tub, fingertips just shy of Giles's shoulder, and enjoyed the evening.

"You know what this night needs?"

"Strippers?" said JP. "You can ring someone and get them to send a stripper, right? I know I left my mobile around here somewhere."

"Champagne," pronounced Giles, and produced a bottle from behind himself. "I decided the night needed something with a bit of sparkle, since we can't see any stars."

"Excellent call," said JP, as Giles produced a pair of glasses from the other side, dangling them between his fingertips.

"I was thinking," said Giles.

"No, absolutely no thinking," said JP. "There is no thinking in the hot tub."

"I was thinking," Giles went on as though JP had been talking to himself, "that we could do some painting this weekend. You know, get the old grubbies on and give it a good slap."

"Like....ourselves?" said JP. "We can get someone in for that."

"It'll be an adventure," said Giles. "Like learning to use the stove, or going to the supermarket. A fresh start."

"You want to paint over cock cat's litter of kittens, don't you?"

"I did find it curious that a cat with penises for legs was female," said Giles. "Interesting artistic choice."

"She impregnated herself," said JP, demonstrating the process with both hands. "I drew that in the loo, but the steam sort of washed it off." At least, he assumed it was the steam.

"Not to disparage your artistic talents," said Giles, handing JP the glass and then stretching his own arms out alongside JP's, "but it might be time."

"Well, you are the penis expert," conceded JP. "I put myself under your tutelage."

*

JP was totally right about his housemates. A week before start of term who should come trudging in the front door but Vod and Oregon, laden with gear from their travels.

"Ladies," said JP, holding his hands wide in a welcoming embrace of air. "Welcome home. How was South America?"

"We didn't go to South America," said Vod. "You didn't sell my stuff, did you?"

"Everything is exactly where you left it," said JP. "You too, Oregon. I knew you'd be back."

"I didn't say I was back," said Vod, "I just asked for my stuff. Is it in my room?"

"If you're not staying, then it's not your room anymore," said JP, "but you're staying. Oregon, cup of tea?"

"Tea?" she said, like she'd never heard of the substance. They hadn't been gone _that_ long, and they did have tea on other continents. Like China. Maybe they went to China.

"Howard made some," said JP. "It's in the kitchen. I'm sure you still remember where the kitchen is. Can I take your bag up to your room?"

"I might not be staying," said Oregon. Of course she was staying. They were all going to come back to him, eventually. "Tea would be nice though."

"Wait," said Vod, letting her backpack thump to the floor and putting her hand on Oregon's arm. "Don't drink the tea."

"It's not _poisoned_ ," said JP. "It's even still warm."

"You haven't asked if we're doing it," said Vod. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," said JP. "I've _matured_. I don't assume that two women who just spend two months backpacking together and have come back wearing each other's clothes are necessarily _doing it_." Then he paused and looked at both of them. "Are you, though? Because you can tell me."

"And there it is," said Vod, throwing a hand up, a gestured which of course Oregon mirrored.

"Hey, _you're_ the ones who brought it up, not me!" said JP. "You don't get to be disgusted with me for asking the question that you wanted me to ask."

"Well, it's just so _obvious_ ," said Oregon. "You didn't even ask us how the trip went."

"I did, actually," said JP. "That's the first thing I asked."

"Well, right," said Oregon, "but—"

"Don't bother," said Vod, "there's something wrong with him."

"Actually, I made the tea." JP wasn't surprised to hear Giles's voice, but clearly the other two were. "I promise it's quite safe."

"JP?"

"You were all _gone_ ," said JP. "And it is my house."

"I didn't say nothing," said Vod.

"Hello Giles," said Oregon. "It's good to see you again."

"You didn't take my room, did you?" said Vod. "I'm going to be needing that."

"I _knew_ you were coming back," said JP. "I knew it."

"Whatever," said Vod. "It doesn't mean anything. You're just charging me less. And it's too late to find anything else."

"The Japester knows how to bring all the ladies to his yard," he said, and ignored Giles snickering in the kitchen. "Not to worry, we've got a posh top floor now. Your territory is sacred."

"Sounds like a real dream come true," said Oregon. "Did you really just talk about yourself in the third person?"

"The Japester has many talents," said JP. "If you ladies ever want—"

"No," said Vod, and lifted her pack again. "I don't know what's up with you, but I need a shower. Oregon, are you coming?"

"Wait, are you—?"

"Honestly," huffed Oregon at him as she did, in fact, follow. "You have such a one-track mind, JP."

It was hard to find something to say as he watched them go up the stairs, though JP kept his mouth open just in case the right words came out.

"Well," said Giles after a few moment had passed, rubbing his hands together. "Lunch?"

"I wasn't going to be rude about it," said JP, finally turning back to him and stealing his cup of tea even though he didn't really want any. "They were the ones who brought it up."

"They're just going to have to get used to the new you," said Giles. 

"What new me? There is no new me. _They're_ the ones who left."

"You might be surprised, J-Pop" said Giles, taking his tea back.

"Well, as long as it's in a good way," said JP, slapping his hands on the counter and taking a step back. "It's your turn to cook."

*

"And do you remember the time Atherton got his blades wedged up under Smythe's settee and had to wait until Smythe was done shagging Atherton's sister before he could get them out?"

Giles threw his head back with laughter, and while he was tipped back, exposing a long expanse of his throat that JP was certainly _not_ noticing, he grabbed the bottle of wine he'd left back there, offering JP another swallow straight from the bottle.

"I think that about does it for me," he said after handing it off, pushing himself up off the floor. "Time for a shower. Are you joining me?"

"Am I what now?"

"Joining me," said Giles, like it happened every day. "In the shower."

JP had to stare at him for a few moments while his brain replayed the words in various orders, trying to see if they might mean something else that way.

"Isn't that kind of, I don't know, _gay_?"

"It is completely gay," said Giles. "A hundred percent gay activity."

"But I'm not gay. We've already established that I'm not gay."

"You can always say no."

JP paused again. "But it does feel good."

"You can always say yes, too."

"This is such a hard question! Why would you even ask me that?"

"Because you've been flirting with me since I moved in," said Giles with a quiet huff of breath as he grabbed his towel. "I'll be in the shower. My offer stands."

It took JP a couple of minutes of standing very, very still and thinking about it, but actually, it wasn't _that_ hard of a question.

*

JP slept in his own bedroom and Giles in his, but he still crept downstairs in the morning for fear of waking Giles up and having to, you know, face him or something horrible like that.

Kingsley was in the kitchen pouring milk, alone, which made it the perfect ambush situation.

"I had sex with Giles."

"I...know?" said Kingsley. "You already had this crisis."

"No, I mean again," said JP. "I had sex with Giles _again_."

Kingsley swallowed his mouthful of breakfast cereal. "And you're absolutely sure you're not actually gay?"

"Well, obviously I'm not absolutely sure I'm not actually gay if I just had gay sex with a gay man again. And not by accident, this time."

"You had sex by accident?"

"Don't tell me _you_ haven't had sex by accident."

"Well, I wouldn't call it accident."

"Well, I would," said JP. "Now what am I going to do?"

"Shouldn't you be talking to Giles about this?"

"He'll just want to have sex again and we'll never get anything sorted."

"If you actually want to have sex with him yet again, doesn't that sort it out for you?"

"Stop being so logical and help me!"

"I'm not exactly sure what you want me to do?" said Kingsley. "If you want to have sex with him, then have sex with him. And if you don't want to have sex with him, then don't have sex with him. It's all good."

"Well, obviously it's _good_ , or I wouldn't be doing it."

"That's so much more than I needed to know," said Kingsley. "I don't think there's an actual question here. It was really more of a statement. So...good for you?"

"You're not help whatsoever," said JP, throwing his hands up in the air and _not_ flouncing back upstairs because that was where the Giles lived and obviously the last thing he wanted to do was something so mind-blowing that he forgot what he was doing while he was doing it.

Obviously.

*

"Listen," said JP, leaning against Giles's open doorframe and staying well out of arm's reach. He didn't want to take any chances. "We need to talk."

After much consideration, which amounted to a bottle of wine, a run around the block, and an hour in the hot tub, this seemed the only mature path to take. He couldn't avoid someone he lived with. He'd already tried that.

"Do we?" said Giles, pushing his blanket down and showing that he'd been sleeping in just his pants. Or...no. Nope. That he'd been sleeping in the buff, it turned out. JP averted his eyes.

"That's not helping!"

"I didn't realise it was supposed to," said Giles, but JP could hear the motion of his blanket and he was at least half covered after. "What is it?"

"It's..." said JP, then looked both ways down the hall—despite the fact that no one else lived on the top floor—and closed Giles's door with himself on the inside.

"Oh, I see," said Giles. "Well, that seems like a good enough way to start my morning." Which wasn't JP's intention _at all_ but Giles reached onto his bedside table for a pen like he was going to jot something down and then slid it into his mouth. All the way. Who even did that?"

"Oh, fuck it," said JP, and pulled his shirt off over his head.

*

Kingsley was gone again, possibly for the rest of the week, which was fine because he'd clearly not been the right person to talk to about this.

"Vod—"

"Don't care, don't want to know, see you later," she said, snatching her hat off the kitchen counter and heading for the door.

"But it's important."

"I doubt it," said Vod. "I need to go someplace to talk to someone about a thing."

"No you don't," said JP. "You're just saying that because you don't want to talk to me."

"So?" said Vod. "Later."

"No, wait," he said, grabbing her arm. "You're my only hope."

Vod paused. "Okay, I'm listening."

"It's a sex thing."

"And now I'm leaving."

"With Giles."

"Back to listening."

"I think it might be like...an addiction?" said JP, skipping the whole part where he'd started doing it in the first place. "I keep telling myself I should stop, but then I don't."

"And you think I know something about that," said Vod flatly.

"Well, obviously," said JP. "So what should I do?"

"You," said Vod, "are a complete arse, and you don't deserve to be having great sex."

"I didn't say it was great!"

"You didn't have to," said Vod. "The walls are thin. Have sex, don't have sex, I don't care. But don't pretend you can't help yourself just because you're a coward. Was that it? Can I go now?"

JP let go of her arm. "I'm not a coward."

"Right," said Vod. "You're just talking to me instead of the person you're having sex with because, what, you want to protect him from your utter wankitude?"

"If I said yes, would you help me then?" Vod slammed the front door on her way out. "Well that was unnecessary," he said as he started making himself a sandwich.

*

Giles's parents were visiting, which meant he stayed with them in their hotel instead of bringing them back to the house because...well, JP didn't need to spell it out. Which consequently gave him a few days to stew about the whole situation.

It wasn't his fault that stewing made him horny, and it wasn't his fault that he didn't feel like going out drinking with Howard and Howard's weird friends to find someone to take the edge off, and it definitely wasn't his fault that the Stowaways hadn't invited him to their little seaside sojourn to take his mind off it. Even though he didn't actually believe that Ralph's new car only seated two.

So, if one did the math, it was not his fault that when Giles got back brimming with good cheer and gifts from Mummy, JP pulled him into his bedroom and closed the door and unbuttoned his own trousers.

"All right, I can take a hint," said Giles, giving him a wry smile and dropping to his knees.

"Only because I know you want it," said JP.

"Sure it is," said Giles, and then JP didn't say anything else not because he couldn't but because Giles had learned a _lot_ since they were fourteen and they were still only exploring the tip of the iceberg. So to speak.

*

"Have you heard from Josie?" said Oregon as JP stretched and yawned and reached for something off the top shelf. He wasn't even sure what it was, but it looked edible. "Or Kingsley?"

"Kingsley...lives here," said JP slowly.

"I know that," said Oregon. "I saw his things. But I thought maybe he was off somewhere, seeing the world."

"The most world he's seen is Southampton," said JP, "and that's not really the _world_."

"So he's still seeing Josie, then," said Oregon. "Good."

"Is he?" said JP. "That would explain a lot, actually. There's just not that much to _do_ in Southampton."

"You seriously didn't figure that out on your own?"

"I've had a lot on my mind, all right?" he said. "You know...things."

"Giles."

" _Not_ Giles," said JP vehemently. "Other things. Important things. I haven't spared Giles a single thought."

"Even though he has the room next to yours?" said Oregon, but even she didn't pretend that was what they were talking about for very long. "Come on, JP. Vod told me. Don't you think you're being unfair to him?"

"Unfair to _him_?" said JP. "He's the one who keeps...seducing me. How is that unfair to _him_?"

"Seducing you," said Oregon. "Right. That's exactly what's happening."

"It is!" said JP. "I'm just going about, minding my business, and then there he is offering blowjobs. _Blowjobs_. How is anyone supposed to resist that?"

"By saying 'no', I would imagine," said Oregon.

"Well, you're not exactly a model of sexual restraint yourself," said JP, but when Oregon lifted her chin and looked like she was going to storm out of the room, JP grabbed her arm. "Wait, no, I'm sorry."

"That was _unnecessary_ ," she said. "And I'm over all of that now."

"I just don't know what I'm supposed to _do_ ," he said. "It keeps happening."

Oregon sat him down like she was an authority on the subject, and honestly JP was so desperate for good advice that he didn't even complain about it. "Do you want him to stop?"

"Yes," said JP. "No. Not really. It's just _weird_."

"How is it weird?" said Oregon. "It's just sex. Sex is a totally natural thing."

"I'm pretty sure some of the things we've done are in no way natural," said JP, which might have been too much information. Perhaps Kingsley had a point after all. "But that's just it."

"What's just it?"

"I don't know if I want it to be just sex," said JP. "That's what's weird."

"Oh," said Oregon, looking taken aback for the first time. "Really?"

"Forget I said anything," said JP, getting up abruptly. This time it was Oregon who stopped him.

"No, wait, sorry, I can do this," she said. "So you do know what you're saying, don't you?"

"I like _girls_ ," said JP.

"Well, obviously."

"But I think I like cock too?"

"Something that seems fairly obvious in retrospect," said Oregon. "Though we weren't sure if it was just _your_ cock, or all cocks."

"My cock is pretty fantastic," said JP, but his grin faded fast in the face of the look Oregon gave him. "So tell me what to do."

"I can't tell you what to do," said Oregon. "But it's all right to like both. Lots of people do."

"Riiiiight," said JP, and gave her what he thought was a fairly significant look but she didn't elaborate on her own exploits even with such a gigantic opening. Truth was, he hadn't even _really_ been hoping for it.

"But you should figure out what you want, because he's not going to keep on doing you and expecting no reciprocation forever."

"Right," said JP. "I actually have no idea how to do that."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's one thing Giles could help you out with a _lot_ more than I could," said Oregon. "So are you sorted now?"

"No," said JP sullenly, "but I don't think I'm going to be."

"Well, that's that then," said Oregon brightly. "And if you see Kingsley...?"

"Right, right," he said, waving a hand vaguely. "I'll tell him you're hot to find him."

"I'm not... you know what? That's fine. That'll do," said Oregon, and swept back out of the kitchen again.

*

There were a lot of things that JP didn't have sorted, but there was one thing that he'd come to understand and accept over the summer: he was responsible for his own destiny. Things that he wanted to happen didn't just spontaneously happen anymore. If he wanted something, he had to do it for himself.

And doing it for himself wasn't just opening his pants.

"All right," said JP, slipping into Giles's room and closing the door behind him.

Giles looked up from where he was stretched out on his bed, propped up on a couple of pillows and reading a magazine. "You could knock," he suggested.

"It is my house," said JP, which wasn't much of a reason, actually.

"But it's my room," said Giles, "and I might've been doing something private. I might've been wanking. You didn't know that."

"I would have been okay with that?" said JP and then sort of left it at that, leaning back against his hands against the door and waiting for Giles to make the next move.

"I might not have been," he said, which wasn't the reaction JP was expecting.

"I just said—"

"I know what you just said," said Giles, putting the magazine away, "but it's not just about you."

"So you don't want to—"

"I didn't say that either."

"Because you're my mate, and I know that we said mate's rules applied but then we—"

"I remember," said Giles. "I was there. For all of them, in fact."

"Right," said JP. "So it's been pointed out to me that I might have been a little bit...selfish?"

Giles shrugged. "It is what it is," he said, "but you don't just get to come in my room and tell me to blow you. Except that one time. That was hot."

"Actually," said JP. "I thought maybe...I could?"

"You though you could give me a blowjob?"

"And afterwards, we could go get a pint," JP added, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "And then tonight you could stay in my room?"

"You want to _date_ me," said Giles.

"I don't know," said JP. "Maybe."

"You know I'm actually gay, right?" said Giles. "And as a gay man I actually date men. For real."

"This is for real too," said JP. "Maybe it wasn't just a phase." Giles smirked at him, an actual smirk, and JP would know. He'd seen enough of them.. "What? I'm pouring my heart out to you here! You don't need to have a laugh."

"I'm not," said Giles.

"Then what?"

"I'll explain it to you some time," he said. "Once we've got a few dates under our belt."

"So we're going to, then?" said JP. He liked to think he'd considered this carefully, this whole not-just-sex thing and everything it meant, but right at the moment his first thought was totally about the regular and convenient sex. "I won't even make you pretend that it's for a laugh."

"Well, that depends on how good the blowjob is."

"Wait, really?" said JP. "Because I've never..."

"Don't worry," said Giles, "I'll help you out. I've already been doing that all summer."

JP would ask him what he meant by that, but then Giles took his trousers off and, well, JP had other things on his mind. And despite all the unsubtly solicited advice, nobody else got a vote in _this_ decision, either.


End file.
